Rooney's stark reminder

Whether or not Manchester United can sustain a title challenge over the entire season, they are thoroughly enjoying hogging the fast lane of the Premiership and the delicious view it affords them in their wing mirrors of an irate Portuguese gentlemen behind honking his horns, flashing his lights and gesticulating for them to move over.

Chelsea did briefly barge and bump their way to the front at lunchtime but United, without even putting their foot to the floor, majestically cruised back past them with a performance illuminated by a Wayne Rooney hat-trick, his first in the Premiership.

Despite last week's impressive win over Liverpool, it is in games like this that title contenders cut their teeth, in this instance against a Bolton team who, although never victorious against United at home in the Premiership, no longer see themselves as top division urchins doffing their cloth caps to footballing aristocracy.

Even Bolton manager Sam Allardyce has stopped peddling that image. At least he had until United proved that there is still a class gap between the Premiership's top four and the plebs below.

He said: "It's a great lesson to us as to where the big boys are in relation to us. We can compete with them when we're on song, but you cannot live with them when they are in that mood. We were left chasing shadows."

Allardyce believes his team have genuine hopes of qualifying for the Champions League and, over breakfast yesterday, Bolton fans were even dreaming of stealing top spot before suffering what England manager Steve McClaren would have described as a reality check, surrendering to Wayne Rooney's first goals since the opening day of the season.

Rooney had spent the previous few games orchestrating the United attack and selflessly handing out goalscoring vouchers to his team-mates. Here, looking back to full fitness or near as damn it, he decided to start restocking his own goals bank balance. "There's been a lot of talk by a lot of people saying I couldn't do it any more, so the feeling when the first goal went in was brilliant," he said.

"Although I'm not too worried about not scoring as long as we get the result, it was a relief, especially as I had gone such a long time without scoring. To finish the hat-trick was nice. I'm delighted to be back among the goals again."

As Rooney's return to form was never an issue to manager Sir Alex Ferguson, even better news for him were the first signs that Michael Carrick might be finally finding his feet in United colours. Giving him Roy Keane's old number 16 shirt might have seemed to have been born out of irony, giving his lack of temperament and tackling ability, but he does possess a locksmith's eye for an opening.

Carrick demonstrated it with a 35-yard crossfield ball that Rooney swept past Jussi Jaaskelainen without breaking stride. Then Rooney carved out the next for himself, anticipating the ball's direction when Abdoulaye Faye tackled Gary Nevilleand then curling it past two defenders into the corner.

Fortress Reebok? It threatened to be a rout by half-time against a Bolton side who had not previously conceded a goal at home this season.

As you would have expected, United were forced to man the ramparts at the start of the second half as Bolton stepped it up and lobbed it up.

Nicolas Anelka and El-Hadji Diouf, who would surely be clear winners of any contest for the most loathed striking partnership, both showed good touches. But it was from one of those lumped Bolton balls into the floodlights that Kevin Davies nodded down for Ivan Campo to give Edwin van der Sar his only real test.

Despite all that, Jaaskelainen was never going to enjoy 40 winks at the other end, United ruthlessly punishing two defensive errors to finish off a master class performance. Saha demonstrated his team credentials by setting up a tap-in for Cristiano Ronaldo when he might have scored himself and when substitute Darren Fletcher sent Rooney racing through the middle, you could have got 1,000-1 against him missing.

Even the loss of Patrice Evra to what looked like a serious injury did not take the gloss off Ferguson's day, who said: "Our football in the first 25 minutes was the best we've played for a good few years. No one will come here and get a result like that." Of Rooney, he said: "It's been coming for a long while. You could see the confidence in him after his first and I was saying, go on son, go and get a couple more."

While United fly to Copenhagen on Wednesday for Champions League action, Bolton will be grateful for a week's rest to regroup before taking on Wigan here next Saturday. But their following two home games, only four days apart, are against Arsenal and Chelsea. Allardyce will have a much better idea of where their season is heading after those encounters.